mecfs – Page 3 – Cornell Center for Enervating NeuroImmune Disease

RTI launches two tools to advance ME/CFS research

Our MECFSnet collaborator, RTI, which operates the Data Management and Coordinating Center (DMCC) for the NIH ME/CFS Centers, has officially launched two research tools – mapMECFS and searchMECFS.

With mapMECFS, the Cornell ME/CFS Collaborative Research Center has worked promptly to submit data to the network. A total of 8 datasets are available. Below lists the publications from which the datasets have been uploaded.

Germain, A.; Levine, S.M.; Hanson, M.R. In-Depth Analysis of the Plasma Proteome in ME/CFS Exposes Disrupted Ephrin-Eph and Immune System Signaling. Proteomes 2021, 9, 6. (Fully and partially normalized uploaded separately)
Germain, A.; Barupal, D.K.; Levine, S.M.; Hanson, M.R. Comprehensive Circulatory Metabolomics in ME/CFS Reveals Disrupted Metabolism of Acyl Lipids and Steroids. Metabolites 2020, 10, 34. (Global metabolites and Lipidomics uploaded separately)
Mandarano AH, Giloteaux L, Keller BA, Levine SM, Hanson MR. 2018. Eukaryotes in the gut microbiota in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. PeerJ 6:e4282
Billing-Ross, P., Germain, A., Ye, K. et al. Mitochondrial DNA variants correlate with symptoms in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. J Transl Med 14, 19 (2016).
Germain A, Ruppert D, Levine SM, Hanson MR. Metabolic profiling of a myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome discovery cohort reveals disturbances in fatty acid and lipid metabolism. Mol Biosyst. 2017 Jan 31;13(2):371-379.
Giloteaux, L., Goodrich, J.K., Walters, W.A. et al. Reduced diversity and altered composition of the gut microbiome in individuals with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Microbiome 4, 30 (2016).

Read more to see the full announcement from RTI.

CDC SEC call on Immune Dysfunction in ME/CFS

On September 23, 2020, a CDC ME/CFS Stakeholder Engagement and Communication (SEC) call took place, featuring a presentation by Dr. Maureen Hanson, ENID Center Director, on “Immune Dysfunction in ME/CFS”. Dr. Elizabeth Unger, Branch Chief of CDC’s Chronic Viral Diseases Branch, provided CDC programmatic updates. The SEC call transcript, audio, and presentation slides are now available on the CDC’s website. Direct links to specific content, including Hanson’s slideshow presentation, are below.

Listen to the audio recording.

Read the transcript.

View Dr. Hanson’s presentation.

Maureen Hanson presents at Cornell COVID-19 Summit 2020

On November 4-5, 2020, Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine held a COVID-19 Summit to exchange information about research into the disease ongoing at both institutions. Dr. Maureen Hanson presented a “flash” talk with three slides to introduce Cornell COVID-19 researchers to the similarity between long-haul COVID-19 and ME/CFS. Content from Hanson’s talk is below.

Our first EV publication finds disturbances in cytokine networks

Center investigator Dr. Ludovic Giloteaux is lead author of a new publication out in the Journal of Translational Medicine. The paper describes cytokine profiling in extracellular vesicles (EVs) in ME/CFS. The study specifically looks at EVs from the plasma of 70 participants, 35 of which are diagnosed with ME/CFS and compared with 35 healthy controls. Both female and male participants were included in this work. Dr. Jesus Castro-Marrero visited our lab from Spain on a fellowship to contribute to the project.

One key finding of the study is the noted disturbances in cytokine networks.. Disturbances in these cytokine networks were seen in both plasma and EVs, and provides further evidence of immune dysregulation in ME/CFS. We are using information from this work to inform our further studies on EVs from blood collected before and after an exercise challenge. Stay tuned for future publications from our Center on this topic.

NYSDOH Panel Session on ME/CFS in Age of COVID-19

Center Director Dr. Maureen Hanson will be presenting current scientific research on ME/CFS during a panel session hosted by New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH). The session titled “Scientific Research on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the Age of COVID-19” will be moderated by Dr. Charles Gonzalez. Dr. Ian Lipkin (Columbia University) and Dr. Avindra Nath (NIH) will be joining Hanson as panel presenters.

UPDATE: In case you missed the panel discussion, NYS DOH released a recording along with each presenter’s slides. Direct links to the recording and Dr. Hanson’s slides are below. Visit the NYS DOH ME/CFS website for more information.

Where do ME/CFS immune cells get their energy, or ale?

Jessica Maya, a graduate student in the Genetics, Genomics, and Development Program at Cornell University in Maureen Hanson’s lab, talks about ME/CFS, the immune system response, and the fuels that energize immune cells to properly defend the body. This talk was adapted from Cornell University’s 3 Minute Thesis Finalists Round Competition, where she was tasked to explain her thesis work in under 3 minutes in an engaging form that could be understood by an intelligent audience with no background in the research area.

The Enterovirus Theory of Disease Etiology in ME/CFS: A Critical Review

This methodologically focused review covers aspects of ME/CFS pathophysiology that are consistent with chronic enterovirus infection outcomes and then closely examines the technology used in in past ME/CFS publications to determine how rigorously the enterovirus theory of disease etiology has been investigated.

IACFSME Conference 2022

IACFSME held a virtual medical and scientific research conference on July 27-30, 2022. Our Center presented several talks and participated in the poster session at the conference. Center members Andrew Grimson, Arnaud Germain, Betsy Keller, Geoff Moore, Jessica Maya, and Katie Glass gave oral presentation on topics ranging from immune cell exhaustion to post CPET recovery. Postdoctoral associate, Ludovic Giloteaux, presented a poster on extracellular vesicle proteins in plasma. Details about the conference agenda can be found on the event’s website.

We would also like to announce that Candace Receno, a new collaborator at Ithaca College, and Jessica Maya received the NIH NINDS travel award at this year’s meeting. Congratulations to Candace and Jessica!

Survey of Anti-Pathogen Antibody Levels in ME/CFS

The Center would like to announce a serology publication that is open access in Proteomes.

This study, led by Adam O’Neal, analyzed plasma antibodies to 122 different pathogen antigens in a case-control comparison including 103 individuals. The cohort of 59 ME/CFS and 44 healthy controls included both female and male participants. The anti-pathogen antibody assays were performed by Augmenta Bioworks. Although this study did not find one particular pathogen associated with ME/CFS, sex-based differences were uncovered. Check out this publication (link above) for more information.

International ME/CFS Awareness Day 2022: metabolite disruption in ME/CFS

For International ME/CFS Awareness Day, we would like to announce the official publication of a large metabolomics study from our Center. The work led by Arnaud Germain, PhD, describes results from a longitudinal plasma metabolite study associated with a 2-day cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET). Over 100 individuals, including both females and males, were assayed before and after both days of the 2-day CPET. The article is open access in the journal JCI Insight. The quote below, from this publication, does an excellent job at summarizing the study.

Our longitudinal study design has allowed us to identify a number of pathways that diverge between healthy individuals and those with ME/CFS 24 hours after an exercise challenge, at which time patients typically experience PEM. Inability to recover properly after exertion is one of the most disabling symptoms of ME/CFS. Our study provides insight into the metabolic changes that are inimical to proper response to physical effort.

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